The Stamp of a Freak
by Lollipopswilltakeover
Summary: Sherlock gets a tattoo and six weeks later, John finds out and wonders why. No slash.


"Obviously, the brother did it. Now, close your mouths and make a proper arrest before I have to do that for you too," Sherlock snapped, pacing the sidewalk, brushing off all attempts made by John to inspect his arm.

"Sherlock, come on, you're bleeding, let me take a look," John demanded, trying to follow his fast-paced friend. Sherlock brushed him off, not even slowing his gait. "Sherlock, let me take a look, it could be infected-"

"John, do be quiet, I'm trying to think," he snipped, infuriating John further. He grabbed Sherlock right by his elbow, fed up with his brilliant flatmate. He turned, grey eyes confused. "What?" he asked, annoyed.

"Sherlock," he began, his voice quiet in the way it got when he was being serious, "you're going to sit down over there and let me inspect you for injuries. You're bleeding, and I need to take a look." Sherlock stiffened, but allowed himself to be moved to the sidewalk.

"If you must," he huffed, sitting down slowly. He gingerly held his arm, wincing. "It appears I am bleeding." John resisted the urge to strangle his friend and decided to kill him later, when he was all bandaged up.

He carefully took off Sherlock's coat, inspecting it for blood. "We're going to need to drop this off at the cleaner's. I fear what they're going to think, considering this will be the seventh time in a month." Sherlock cracked a smile.

"They have learned to not ask anymore." John rolled up the shirt sleeve carefully, inspecting his forearm. There was a cut, not very deep, but bleeding quite a bit, but that wasn't what surprised John.

"Sherlock, when did you get a tattoo?" Indeed, right below his hand, in elegant script, was the word 'Freak'. It was incredibly simple, done in entirely pitch-black ink, with little flourish. It small, and far enough down his wrist that one wouldn't normally see it when he wore his coat or shirts.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "I got it six weeks ago. You really should be more observant, John." John repeatedly opened and closed his mouth, trying to contain the words bursting from his mouth.

"Why?" he finally managed, gently cleaning the wound and being careful of the tattoo. "Why did you get it? I thought you disliked being called freak." In truth, they had never discussed Sherlock's opinion on being branded as such, but every time Donovan called him such resulted in very slight wincing, something that had taken John a very long time to notice.

"I never said I disliked it. Be careful!" he hissed, trying to retract his arm as the cleaning liquid touched his arm. "It stings!"

"Yes, Sherlock, rubbing alcohol does that when it cleans cuts," John informed, taking care to avoid the tattoo. "But why did you get it?" Sherlock glared at him like a petulant child, only reacting to the string of alcohol.

"Are you doing this just to torment me?" he asked, blatantly ignoring John's questions.

"No, Sherlock, you see, wounds actually need to be cleaned, otherwise they get infected." John took some gauze and gently bandaged the wound. "Now please, why did you get that tattoo? And why didn't you tell me?" Truth be told, he was slightly offended that Sherlock hadn't told him.

"I figured you would've known by now, and had no reason to inform you of it," he shrugged nonchalantly. "And I got it because I wanted to." Sherlock's eyes refused to meet John's, and he got the feeling that his friend was almost ashamed of the reason he got it.

"Okay, Sherlock, let's go home." The consulting detective blinked, then put himself to rights and stood up. They bid their farewells to Lestrade and ignored Donovan's and Anderson's constant prattle.

"You're going to attempt to force it out of me when we get back to the flat." His voice was cool, but John picked up on a note of slight panic in the normally cool baritone voice. John nodded in confirmation. "To be expected." Sherlock picked up his pace, leaving John in the dust.

And John left him be. He would get his answers later, and they obviously were a sensitive topic for the stone cold detective. A chink in the practically indestructible armor the consulting detective wore constantly. And John wouldn't press. Too much

* * *

_"Oh, where are you, Freak? Come out, come out, wherever you are," the bully said, peeking around every corner. Nine year old Sherlock's heart beat faster, and he could barely swallow his fear. _

_He considered his odds: Stay in his hiding spot, and risk being found with no escape, or run for the school and pray that he was faster than the horde of bullies chasing him. The hunting party mostly consisted of fourth graders, although there were a few fifth graders aiding them. His best chances lay with running for it, with the way the boy was searching. He would probably stumble upon his hiding spot by accident, and then Sherlock would be doomed._

_He quietly climbed down the tree, and took off with a run. He calculated the fastest route to school and tried to avoid areas that would give away his position away. His legs burned, but he couldn't give up. The last time they caught him…_

_He shivered, refusing to dwell on the past. "FOUND THE FREAK, HE'S RUNNIN' FOR THE SCHOOL!" Someone yelled, encouraging Sherlock to run faster. His backpack was added weight he couldn't afford, but had to keep. It slowed him down tremendously, but he'd get into trouble if he left it behind. So, it stayed._

_"Run, freak, run as fast as you can!" they laughed, insults hurled at his frail body. Sherlock ran, but he couldn't outrun them for much longer. He was so close to the school, unbearingly close…_

_And then he tripped. Tripped over an unforeseen rock, sprawling over the muddied ground and cutting himself. He tried to get up, but slipped again. "Looks like the freak fell," someone said, forcing Sherlock into a ball._

_"Aw, don't do that," one of the older kids said, crouching down to his leve. "We're just having fun… Freak. Don't take it too harshly, it's just what you deserve." He curled himself tighter, willing for them to go away._

_He heard a pen being uncapped. From the sound of it, and the pungent scent released into the air, a Sharpie. He cringed, trying to use his backpack as a shield. His forearm was roughly grabbed, and he wasn't strong enough to pull it back._

_The cold ink was traced onto his delicate pale skin, but he couldn't see anything, because he couldn't raise his head, for fear of being hit. He struggled, but a good kick to his stomach stopped his revolt. "There. Now everyone'll know what a freak he is." They laughed, running away._

_Sherlock picked himself off the ground, careful of his injuries. He then looked at his forearm. Written in black ink darker than any black ink had the right to be, was the word Freak, branding him forever._

* * *

Sherlock unconsciously traced his forearm, right where there once had been Sharpie ink. Every day after that one, they had attacked him and wrote the word over his body, wherever they could. Unless he outran them. He hadn't always been so fast.

He hurried into their flat, dreading the explanation. He couldn't even figure out his reasoning behind it. Was it meant to make him feel awful? Remind him of his past? Make him feel like he had overcome all that? Be a reminder? Sherlock honestly had no clue as to why he had suddenly gotten the impulse to permanently ink himself with the dreaded word, and he couldn't tell how he felt about it.

Did he hate what it represented? Did he enjoy the fact that he had overcome all of those bullies (most of them were serving time or married with a dead on job- he pitied the latter more, if at all)? Did he not care? Sherlock couldn't figure it out. The word that had tormented him for years was now truly a part of him.

He supposed it was his sort of bitter irony at work, although why it got kicks out of it was annoying. But either way, it was there, and he could no longer block out those painful memories of his childhood.

"Sherlock? Are you alright? You've been staring into space for hours." John's worried voice cut into his thought process. He blinked, then spinned around to face his concerned friend. Although, really, at this point in their friendship, John should've gotten used to his disconnects from the world.

"I'm fine, John. Just thinking." The lie spilled from his tongue like blood from a fresh wound, leaking into the air like carbon monoxide, poisoning the atmosphere. He wasn't sure if John had picked up on the lie, but it weighed him down in a fashion that he suspected was guilt, although he wasn't positive.

"If you're that determined to keep your reasoning to yourself, I don't have to know, it's fine." Oh dear, John was feeling guilty. That wasn't good. Sherlock tried to find the words to explain that it wasn't his fault, sputtered to explain, but that didn't come out.

"I was bullied." After a second of silence, Sherlock rushed on, not wanting to see John's reaction to his weakness. "When I was younger. Didn't have a lot friends, didn't have any, in fact, and most of the students were afraid of me, and the rest got kicks out of tormenting me." He let the words roll off his tongue like it was just a fact, trying to hide just how much it had hurt him. Did it still hurt him? Perhaps. Sherlock didn't allow himself to focus on that and continued on with his explanation.

"They called me, among various other things, freak. That was a favorite insult of their little brains, to the point where they would hold me down and ink my forearms with it. Normally it was my forearms, but occasionally they would go for my face or neck, really, anywhere. But they usually went for the forearms, no clue as to why."

His voice was monotone, and he was staring at the floor, ashamed. But he continued on because it was John. John deserved to know, deserved to know how weak he had been. Sherlock continued his explanation because John had asked for it.

"It became part of how I saw myself, I suppose. The Freak. Most of the people around me, excluding my direct family, saw me that way. Even them, my family, they thought me strange. Mycroft thought I was a freak for using my brains differently, thought me extremely stupid. And my parents loved me, yes, but they, especially my father, weren't always sure what to make of Mycroft's and I's heads, although I worried them more. So even there, I was a Freak. The Freak."

"As I got older, I forced myself to forget it with… Well, you know." Bitter laugh. "And then I started helping Lestrade, and you hear Donovan, occasionally Anderson. The Freak Stamp was back." He couldn't dare himself to look at John, see his face filled with disgust.

"I'm not sure why I did. Truly, I'm not. I suspect that it probably has to do with the fact that I've overcome it, or something like that. Another idea is that it's part of who I am, and I've embraced it. I don't know, and I really don't care. But it's there now, and I have no regrets." Sherlock couldn't raise his head past John's shoes (he was going on a date later, or was planning on it), and he feared John's reaction.

"Sherlock," John's kind voice said, and he winced. "Sherlock, you're crying." Instantly his fingers flew to his cheeks, which were damp. He quickly wiped them away and acted like nothing had happened. Nothing was allowed to make him hurt that much that he had to cry.

"I just got something in my eye." John accepted the lie, and moved on. Sherlock sometimes wondered how John dealt with it. Sherlock's constant lying. He'd try to stop, had tried before, but it never worked. He didn't think John knew about his attempts to stop, and he accepted that. John didn't have to know everything.

"That must've been awful." Sympathy, true, honest-to-God sympathy dripped from John's words, and Sherlock wasn't sure how to take them. Normally sympathy irked him, infuriated him. But not this time. It was almost nice, he supposed. "Are you okay?"

The ultimate question: Are you okay?

Are you okay, someone would ask, when they were injured. Are you okay, someone would ask, when they were unsure of a person's capability to handle things. Are you okay, someone would ask, when someone was upset.

Are you okay, someone would ask, when they were damaged.

Sherlock normally would have been offended. Normally he would have retorted with an 'Of course I'm alright, you poor tiny mind', normally would've had has his feathers ruffled. Normally he would've just ignored the fact that someone had to ask if he was alright because his shields were failing. Normally.

But John didn't see that. Or so he hoped. He hoped that John was asking because he cared, not because he had to. Not because he was so blatantly broken. And that's what he was, no matter how well he hid it. Sherlock was broken. But there was nothing plain, and nothing simple, about his brokenness. He still had that.

"I'm getting better." Deep breath. "That's why I got a tattoo." Sherlock waited a moment, unsure of John's next move. A moment later, a pit of dread was stored in his stomach. Did John no longer like him? Was he ashamed to be friends with him now that he knew the truth? Sherlock couldn't bare the thought, no matter how much he wanted to not be affected by John's opinion was. He cared about what John thought of his.

The next thing Sherlock knew, he was being hugged. Rather awkwardly, considering he was sitting down and John had to bend down. "Oh, Sherlock," John whispered, and then Sherlock felt tears wetting his shoulder.

"John," he asked, "Why are you crying?"

"Because you're Sherlock." He wasn't what that had to do with why John was crying, but he awkwardly patted his flatmate's back.

"You're crying because I am myself?"

"Oh god, just shut up."

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed 'The Stamp of a Freak' and will leave me a comment about what you thought!**


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